i've been saved by a woman (she won't let me go now)
by whyyesitscar
Summary: "Arthur called on a Tuesday and Helena left on a Wednesday. It was that simple." / Helena learns Myka has cancer. Takes place in a vaguely AU S4 finale, title taken from "Trouble" by Ray LaMontagne.


**A/N: Had this little plot bunny rolling around for the last few days, and I can never resist some good angst. Hope you enjoy.**

* * *

Silence is not straightforward.

This is something that Helena has learned over a century. It is a realization that seeps into the static between memories of Christina, an awareness that claws its way to the forefront of her mind just as she gains a moment of peace. Silence always brings whispers and phantom sensations, shadows that dance out of reach and do not offer any explanations.

There are no machines in this waiting room. The coffee machine doesn't drip, the window is not open, and Pete hasn't spoken for forty minutes.

It is not silent.

/

It was Arthur who called her, in the end. He called on a Tuesday—Helena remembers because Adelaide had a science fair—and Helena left on a Wednesday. When she finally came to her senses, there was no worrying, no deciding or feeling troubled about Nate and his daughter. Helena was needed. Myka needed her. It was simple (and that had always been part of the problem.)

Myka had already checked into the hospital by the time Helena landed in South Dakota, so Arthur was the one to retrieve her from the airport, and that Helena did puzzle over. Claudia had kept her as informed as she could about what happened after Helena had absconded with the astrolabe. Helena was very sorry to hear of Leena's passing; given more time, she's sure they could have been great friends. (Given more time, Helena would not have met Myka, and that frightened her most of all).

It seemed Arthur had revised his opinion of her, or at the very least he was deeply scarred by what he had done and instead overcompensated as penance. Either way, Helena welcomed the distraction.

He had not started the car immediately upon collecting her. Helena had stowed her bags in the boot, run a hand through her hair, and opened the passenger door to find Arthur thoroughly fascinated with his knees. His hands were glued to the steering wheel, extended as far as they could go, but his eyes would not move.

"Are you alright?" she had asked.

He grunted before relaxing his arms and letting his hands hang from the wheel by his thumbs. "Pretty stupid question for someone so smart."

Helena rolled her eyes. "I know you're not alright, Arthur, but I would not presume to know the exact nature of your distress." He said nothing. "I'm sorry about Leena," she offered.

"_I'm _sorry about Leena."

"I believe you."

Helena had almost memorized the route from the airport to the inn, but these roads were unfamiliar and lonely. She was not going home. Arthur was taking her to the hospital where Pete and Claudia and Steve were already waiting. Arthur wound around different shades of the same dirt; his wheels spat it out when even they got tired. Helena watched dust clouds explode behind her window before eventually dissolving into the air. It was the kind of thing she used to dream of.

Neither of them said anything more for the rest of the car ride. At one point, Helena even fell asleep, lulled by the false safety of the sun through her window. _It is warm_, she thought, _and Myka might not be_. She did not sleep for long.

Arthur brought the car to a grumbling stop, sighing as he shifted it into park. "I didn't call you to invite you back to the Warehouse."

"I know."

"It's not my call to make and I don't know how the Regents feel about you these days."

"It's alright."

"I just thought that, maybe—maybe we're not guaranteed a spot in this world as long as we want to be, so it doesn't do anyone any good to hold onto vendettas, justified though they may be."

Helena found herself smiling. "I appreciate the call, Arthur, more than you might realize."

He gave a feeble laugh. "Oh, I realize; don't think I don't realize. It used to drive me crazy. But now"—and here he heaved a heavy breath, as if every sorrow might escape with it—"now I just don't care," he shrugged. "This whole team should be happy to work together. Look what happens when we're not."

"You can't blame yourself forever, Arthur."

"No, but maybe just as long as it takes to make everyone as happy as they deserve to be. So let's go start with Myka."

He unbuckled his seat out and swung a leg out of the door before Helena caught him, her fingers finding the edges of his arm. "Arthur, wait." He turned back to look at her and for a moment, Helena let her feelings rise to the surface. She let him see everything she willfully hid in the months before Yellowstone, and everything that Myka had made her feel afterward.

She was not crying, but it was still early.

"Thank you, truly."

He nodded once, slammed the door, and waited for her to catch up.

/

And so it is that Helena finds herself in a hospital with nothing to do but pace and desperately avoid small talk. Claudia has taken to wandering the halls because she is far more restless than anyone else. Sometimes she wanders back their way and Helena catches her with a curious look and a stream of ceaseless chatter. It is the kind of fugue state she enters when she has ideas for revelatory inventions. Helena smiles before wondering if this is when Claudia learns that sometimes there are no answers. Gadgets do not always work and even very motivated geniuses can't solve everything.

(Having learned that through personal experience, Helena thoroughly hopes Claudia never does.)

Steve and Arthur are at the cafeteria because Steve is a pacifist and Arthur is more easily soothed with some kind of pastry. Which leaves Helena and Pete in a horribly constricting, sterile waiting room, where the door is heavy enough to block out the buzz of nurses and machines in the hallway. Those sounds would terrify her; she knows this. They would terrify and unnerve her. But Helena would prefer fear to uncertainty.

"How long's it been?" Pete finally asks.

"I don't know," Helena replies. "When I arrived she had already gone under. How long was the gap?"

Pete shakes his head. "I don't remember. I can't really focus on anything but—" He clears his throat, looking as helpless as Helena has ever seen him. "She'll be alright, right? She has to be."

Helena does not have an answer.

"She'll be alright," Pete repeats. She watches as he swipes a hand brusquely at his eye. "Are you staying this time?"

"Well, that all depends."

"On what?"

"On Myka. If she'll want me to stay."

"She never stopped wanting you, H.G."

"Yes, I know."

(That is also only part of the condition.)

"How do you?" she adds.

"We had a talk on the way back from Wisconsin. I don't need to tell you how much that messed her up."

"No," Helena whispers, "you don't."

"I do need to tell you that I'm glad you're back." He falls into the seat next to her and takes her hand; his fingers are callused and too warm. When he squeezes, Helena does, too. "We all are."

"Thank you."

That's how the doctor finds them twenty minutes later, and for one reason or another they're both soon in tears.

/

Myka looks small.

Helena supposes everyone does in a hospital bed, but considering she is the largest part of Helena's life, the sight is somewhat unsettling.

Pete asked to go in first and Helena had gladly obliged. It is all well and good to worry from the distance of a waiting room, but Helena has never done well with tragedy up close. This, of course, is no tragedy, but it came very close.

Myka looks small as she breathes, unmoving and pale against the white of the bed sheets. If not for the rise and fall of her chest, Helena might unravel very quickly. She might do it anyway.

She takes a seat at Myka's right side, in view of the door just in case they are interrupted. Myka's hand lies still next to her, inches away, and yet Helena cannot make her own move. It is all she has dreamed of for a very long while—Myka, she means. She dreams of things others would call boring, nothing like the fantasies of weddings and children that seem to plague every generation of women. Helena would beg to differ; she can imagine nothing grander than Myka Bering.

In the end, her will power is simply not enough, and Helena takes Myka's hand. It is so unlike Pete's, smooth and cool. In the right light her skin is almost transparent and Helena grips tighter, as though her fingers might be the tether that stops Myka from disappearing.

She swipes at the back of Myka's hand and laughs at the way Myka's skin moves with her. Helena is so relieved she can bear the silence no longer.

"Hello, darling," she whispers. "I harbor no foolish notions that you can hear me under the influence of so many drugs, but I have never been able to while away much time in silence. I've also found that the most attentive listeners are quite often unconscious, so once again I am unable to resist you."

Helena rests her elbow on the table next to the bed, propping her head in her free hand. "Do you know," she muses, "I think you the most magnificent creature I've ever seen; I certainly wouldn't look this elegant if I'd been through all you have." She sighs, expelling doubt and terror and letting them dissolve into the calm air. "I understand your motivation for not calling me, but you really should have, Myka. I say this now while you have little chance of protesting, as I'm sure you rightly would. I _will_ tell you, when you finally awake, that it was Arthur who called me. I believe I may have underestimated him."

(And what a call it was. Helena will remember it forever even though she would love nothing more than to forget.)

"_Arthur?"_

"_Yeah, it's me."_

"_Is there a problem at the Warehouse?"_

"_Not with an artifact."_

"_I apologize Arthur, but I simply do not have time for your obtuse riddles today; Adelaide—"_

"_Myka has cancer."_

_The breath left her lungs because surely air had ceased to exist. "I'm sorry?"_

"_Myka has cancer. She's having surgery tomorrow."_

"_Well, what a perfect time to tell me then," Helena retorts, absent anything else to say._

"_Helena"—Arthur softens and that is when Helena feels the prickle of fear settle into her heart—"she only told us a few days ago. It's been—well, no one's really been right since then."_

"_I would imagine not." She sighs and reaches for the kitchen table, finally finding a chair with her flailing hand. "I appreciate the call, Arthur but—"_

"_But you have a family? Please don't patronize me, Helena."_

"_You don't call me Helena."_

"_Well, I can't exactly call you Agent Wells, can I?"_

"_If I leave Adelaide now I don't think I'll ever be able to come back."_

"_I don't think that's the problem for you. I think you're worried about what will happen if you can't stay."_

"_Arthur—"_

"_The last possible flight that would get you here in time leaves at noon tomorrow. I'll be at the airport waiting even if you're not."_

Helena had too much decorum to leave someone waiting; that was what she would have told Arthur if he'd asked. There were still some things she was not ready to admit to him, whatever he thought he already knew.

"He'll tell you differently, but there was no question of my coming here, Myka. I am powerless to your charm, darling. You need only ask and I will always be at your side." Helena sniffs back a tear and fails to prevent a second one from falling. She kisses the back of Myka's hand. "Please, when you wake, please ask. I have been longing to say yes for years."

Tempted by the brief press of her lips to Myka's skin, Helena indulges again and kisses Myka's temple. She kisses her forehead, her brow, sweeps a finger across the worry lines on her cheeks. Helena would spend a lifetime smoothing them if she could.

She falls asleep moments later, the thrum of Myka's pulse beating between their palms.

/

Helena wakes to a cough. So do four other occupants of the room.

"Myka!"

"Mykes!"

She hears the words but she does not understand them until Myka's hand moves in hers, and it is not cold anymore. It is tired and slow, but it is warm.

"Myka," she breathes, watching green eyes flutter back to life.

"Here, have some water," Pete says, rushing over with a plastic cup and straw.

"Wait," Helena interrupts, blocking his arm with hers. He glares at her and she instantly softens. "Please, Pete, I need just a moment, or else I'll lose the nerve."

He nods and backs away. "Okay."

Helena smiles and takes up Myka's hand again, cradling it between both of hers. She waits until she's sure Myka is looking at her, and then she grins so widely she marvels that she has enough cheek to stretch that far. "Hello, Myka," she laughs, throaty and awkward. "I know you're still confused from the drugs and you may require me to say this again, but I assure you I will say this as many times as you want. I am sorry, darling. I am sorry for Yellowstone and for Sykes and the astrolabe and especially for Wisconsin. I am sorry that I keep making you chase me. I am sorry for ever hurting you at all and it pained me every time because I am so desperately in love with you. I'm afraid I have been for a very long time and I'm truly sorry I never told you sooner."

It is a long moment before Myka smiles, too.

"'Kay," she croaks. "Can I have some water now?"

"Here." Pete places the straw on her lips and this time Helena is the one to glare.

"Myka?"

Myka stops drinking and looks at Helena. "Okay," she repeats. "Okay, you love me. Love you, too. I know all about your foolish notions." She smiles at Helena's surprise. "The best part is they're not foolish." She tries to move her hand and laughs again when Helena stops her. "You're beautiful," she slurs. "I was always going to love you."

"What a time to find your romance," Helena laughs. It is the only alternative to crying.

"Everyone's romantic after morphine."

Helena laughs again. She cries this time, too. "Would you like to go back to sleep, darling?"

"Are you gonna give me a goodnight kiss?"

"Very gladly, if you'll allow it."

She does.

/

The next time Myka wakes, Helena is the only one there. Pete dragged everyone to a diner across the street, and they still haven't come back after three hours. She has seen the way Pete eats; he'll be there for longer still.

Myka's eyes are clearer this time. Helena finds them beautiful no matter her state of mind.

"Where's everybody else?" she rasps.

"Watching Pete eat, most likely." Helena's heart leaps at the sound of Myka's laughter. "Would you like to join them? I could have them back here with a veritable feast in seconds."

"No," Myka answers, "they'll be back eventually. Right now I just want you. And maybe a little more water."

"I can oblige you on both counts," Helena smiles, "if you'll scoot over a touch."

"I just want you to know," Myka says as she moves, "that it's not usually this easy to get into my bed."

"Then I suppose I'll have to savor this moment." Myka rolls her eyes, smiling, and Helena drops her voice. "As I do every moment with you," she amends. Flirting is all well and good but Helena takes her feelings very seriously.

There is a quip hovering on the tip of Myka's tongue, Helena can see it, but it fizzles out from the intent in her eyes. "I meant it, you know," she says, fingers playing with the collar of Helena's shirt. "It wasn't just the drugs. I love you, too."

"I know."

"And I did hear you."

Helena smiles, playing along. "Oh, did you?"

"I think I could hear you across time, Helena," Myka nods. "Sleep is easy."

Helena leans in for another kiss, tasting salt on Myka's still-dry lips. She doesn't care what the circumstances are—that they're in a hospital because Myka almost died from something that kills normal people every day; that everything Helena owns is in a suburban farce of a house in Wisconsin; that they've lost too much time and are guaranteed less than most. Helena cares about nothing but Myka, at the moment, and the way she kisses back. Myka kisses like an epiphany.

"Don't you want to know what the doctor said?" Helena whispers when they pull apart.

"He told you? He wasn't supposed to tell anyone but Pete."

"Yes, well, Pete is awful at keeping happy secrets."

"It's happy?"

"It is happy."

"Will you celebrate with me tomorrow?"

"Hm, I should think so. And for many tomorrows after that."

"Tell me about them."

"Oh, well, I'll wait on you hand and foot, for the present. We will return home and I will do whatever you cannot accomplish alone. I will endure endless teasing from Pete and Claudia, I'm sure. I'll even tend to that ghastly ferret of yours. Later, when you regain your strength, we will take walks around the garden. I'll show you my favorite aisles of the Warehouse. There is magic hidden within those walls that even you haven't found, Myka, and you deserve to see it. And on nights when you can't sleep, I will be there, just as I am now, to soothe your worries and chase away your phantoms."

"You really can't help being so charming, can you?"

"No," Helena smiles, leaning in for another kiss. She imagines this will become quite a regular occurrence. "But I only mean it with you."

Myka is the one who leans in this time.


End file.
